Neighbors continue to protest Kinnick-style house

A Decorah couple plans to build a nearly 7,500-square-foot replica of the stadium as a home in the Manville Heights neighborhood in Iowa City.

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Signs protesting a Kinnick Stadium-style house proposed for 101 Lusk Ave. are scattered in yards near the intersection of River Street and Magowan Avenue in Iowa City's Manville Heights neighborhood on Monday.(Photo: Andy Davis/Iowa City Press-Citizen)Buy Photo

Residents in the Manville Heights neighborhood have taken to the internet and their own yards to continue their fight against a nearly 7,500-square-foot home that would resemble Kinnick Stadium.

Over the weekend, members of the Neighbors of Manville Heights Association distributed signs emblazoned with the phrase "Stop 'Kinnick' party venue" next to a list of what it claims the house, proposed for 101 Lusk Ave., will threaten: neighborhoods, tax dollars and safety. The signs were posted in yards across the neighborhood on Monday.

Alongside the signs, the association also rolled out the Nile Says No website, a reference to 1939 Hesiman Trophy winner Nile Kinnick after whom the stadium is named. The website includes a Change.org petition that demands the Board of Adjustment rescind building permits. As of Monday evening, the petition had gathered over 100 signatures.

According to the petition, neighbors "believe that the letter and spirit of city code have been ignored and abandoned at the expense of our neighborhoods and taxpayers," and that the issuance of building permits to property owners Reed and Sandy Carlson, of Decorah, "sets a dangerous precedent."

Other issues listed in the petition include concerns that taxpayers will be required to subsidize infrastructure improvements like street widening in order to accommodate emergency vehicles and that the house will negatively affect natural elements and property values in the neighborhood.

"Taxpayers will eventually be asked to widen streets, improve storm sewers, guard fragile areas against watershed and erosion" caused by storm water runoff and "provide safe means to get to and from this location," the petition states.

Although the city has issued building permits, construction on the property has been halted until the city's Board of Adjustment considers an appeal, filed last month by neighbors seeking to prevent the house from being built. The appeal is scheduled to heard at a meeting tentatively scheduled for Sept. 14.

City associate planner Sarah Walz, a staff contact for the Board of Adjustment, said the petition will not be considered as part of the board's decision.

"The board's job will be to look at the zoning code language that is used to determine what is allowable and they will determine whether staff appropriately followed the language in the zoning code. That's all they have purview of: was the zoning code language applied correctly," Walz said.

A couple from Decorah submitted these site plans to Iowa City government to build a nearly 7,500-square-foot home in the Manville Heights neighborhood. The issue issued a building permit for the project, but neighboring property appealed the decision to the Board of Adjustment.(Photo: Submitted)

Karin Southard, president of the Neighbors of Manville Heights Association, said via email Monday that neighborhood appellants will deliver copies of the petition to the Board of Adjustment at its meeting.

"The residents of Manville Heights are very upset by what they believe to have been an obvious error in judgment by at least some members of the city's staff. (The petition) is one way for neighbors and concerned citizens to voice their collective reaction and opposition to that decision," Southard said in her email. "It will be up the Board of Adjustment to determine whether, or whether not, to consider the Petition, along with other evidence that Appellants will be offering at the hearing.

The property is designated as an RS-5 zone, defined in city code as a low density single-family residential area. City code goes on to say that the zoning designation "allows for some nonresidential uses that contribute to the livability of residential neighborhoods," including parks, schools, religious institutions and daycare facilities, but that "related nonresidential uses and structures should be planned and designed to be compatible with the character, scale and pattern of the residential development."

Plans for the house call for a 7,476 square-foot home shaped like the stadium, complete with brick siding and a replica of the press box.

"This proposed structure is neither consistent nor compatible with the neighborhood, which is classified as low-density single family residential, and which imposes certain minimum requirements for each residence, both in structure and purpose," Southard said in her email.

Site of proposed Kinnick-style house

Reach Andy Davis at 319-887-5404 or at aldavis@press-citizen.com, and follow him on Twitter as @BylineAndyDavis.